[b-hebrew] Amarna Letters: The Number 318
JimStinehart at aol.com
JimStinehart at aol.com
Wed Dec 26 10:14:34 EST 2007
Kenneth Greifer:
1. In Amarna Letter #287, the ruler of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, says to
Akhenaten at lines 53-59:
“I sent as gifts to the king [Akhenaten], my lord, …318 porters for the
caravans of the king, my lord….”
2. As to the peculiar number 318, compare Genesis 14: 14:
“And when Abram [at Hebron] heard that his brother [his nephew Lot] was taken
captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and
eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan.”
3. The word translated there at Genesis 14: 14 as “trained men” is not seen
in the secular record after the 15th century BCE. That suggests that chapter
14 of Genesis is a truly ancient text. The ancient word chânîykîm is never
used elsewhere in the Bible.
4. Comparing the two uses of the number 318 above, although the situations
are by no means identical, there are some surprising similarities. Both in
Amarna Letter #287 and at Genesis 14: 14, we are dealing with 318 good men
mustered from southeastern Canaan for the good cause of the first historical
monotheist.
5. Moreover, the first historical monotheist, both in the Bible and in
secular history, distinguished himself militarily by opposing the Hittites. In
chapter 14 of Genesis, Abraham rescues Lot from a force of four attacking rulers,
one of whom has a classic Hittite name: Tidal/Tudhaliya. Akhenaten for his
part distinguished himself by managing to prevent Hittite King Suppililiuma I
from invading Canaan. Although the names “Suppililiuma” and “Tidal”/“
Tudhaliya” are not the same, nevertheless those two names are truly joined at the
hip. Suppililiuma’s great-grandfather named Tudhaliya (“Tidal” in Hebrew)
started this line of Hittite kings. Suppililiuma’s immediate predecessor as
Hittite king was his father, also named Tudhaliya (“Tidal”). And last but not
least, Suppililiuma became king of the Hittites by the dramatic expedient of
murdering his older brother who was the rightful heir to the throne, and you can
guess what the name of that murdered older brother of Suppililiuma was:
Tudhaliya (“Tidal”), of course (known to historians as “Tudhaliya the Younger”).
So in my view these Hittite kingly names match, though we are admittedly
dealing with two different Hittite kingly names in comparing chapter 14 of Genesis
to Amarna.
6. The only other time that I myself have seen the number 318 is when
Amenhotep III married a Hurrian princess from the upper Euphrates River, who brought
with her 317 handmaidens from Nahrima (accurately stated at Genesis 24: 10 as
“Naharim”), making a total of 318 women coming out from the upper Euphrates
River. Amenhotep III was the father of the first historical monotheistic
leader of a people. As such, Amenhotep III is somewhat comparable to Isaac in the
Patriarchal narratives, who was the father of Jacob/“Israel”. Isaac’s bride
of course did in fact come from the upper Euphrates River, from
Naharim/Nahrima, a state that went out of existence at the end of the 14th century BCE, and
her name was Rebekah. True, chapter 24 of Genesis does not say that Rebekah
brought 317 handmaidens with her. But note how oddly prominent Rebekah’s
nurse and handmaidens are who come with Rebekah way out to Canaan:
“And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's
servant, and his men. …And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the
camels, and followed the man.” Genesis 24: 59. 61
And just when you had forgotten all about Rebekah’s nurse, who would seem to
be as minor a character as possible, why she is mentioned again, and this time
by name even:
“And Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried below Beth-el under the
oak; and the name of it was called Allon-bacuth.” Genesis 35: 8
7. Note that both at Amarna and in the Patriarchal narratives, both the
first historical leader of a monotheistic people (Jacob and Akhenaten), and his
father (Isaac and Amenhotep III), marry women from the upper Euphrates River.
In the older generation, the woman’s handmaidens are emphasized, and relations
with the in-laws are fine. But in the younger generation, the monotheistic
son-in-law from far to the southwest rudely breaks off relations with his irate
father-in-law from the upper Euphrates River/Nahrima/Naharim, with the last
straw in both cases being certain statues (teraphim or gold statues) that the
monotheistic son-in-law never delivered to his irate father-in-law from the
upper Euphrates River.
Yitzhak Sapir can say that this is all fiction dreamed up by four mid-1st
millennium BCE Hebrew ghostwriters, JEPD, but it just tain’t so. There is no way
that any mid-1st millennium BCE Hebrew ghostwriter would have known these
specific historical details that come right out of the well-documented secular
history of the mid-14th century BCE.
Like the number 318.
The fact of the matter is that the Patriarchal narratives are a truly ancient
text, no matter how many times academic scholars tell us that we should
accept the 100-year-old Documentary Hypothesis. That old theory that was dreamed
up when no one knew the Hittites existed, and when there was little knowledge
of Amarna, the Hurrians, the Decapitation of the Shechem Offensive, the
historical iniquity of the Amorites, when the Amorites sold out northern Lebanon and
Ugarit to the dreaded Hittites in the mid-14th century BCE, etc., etc., etc.
Since Mr. Wellhausen knew nothing about the secular history of the mid-14th
century BCE, why should we accept his theory that the Patriarchal narratives are
fiction ginned up by four Hebrew authors in the mid-1st millennium BCE, in
the face of all the detailed matches between the text and what is now well known
about the secular history of the mid-14th century BCE?
Note that Yitzhak Sapir has not set forth a single story in the entirety of
the Patriarchal narratives that is out of place in a mid-14th century BCE
setting. Not one. So why should we think that a storyline, all of whose
components fit perfectly into the Amarna period, is fiction ginned up by multiple
authors in the mid-1st millennium BCE? On my view, the first historical Hebrew is
the sole author of the Patriarchal narratives, and he lived in the mid-14th
century BCE.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)
More information about the b-hebrew
mailing list